> He says he is “not bad” at maths – by which he means he came top in the state of New South Wales in his year 12 maths exams As an Australian that has worked with American companies for a while, this is a behaviour I’ve had to overcome. If you tell an Australian you’re “not bad” at something then they’ll take that to mean that you’re actually quite good, whereas many Americans will understand it to mean that you’re…
I'm sure you're aware, but thought I'd drop this for our American friends. Australia and New Zealand (where I'm from) share Tall poppy syndrome[1] and going by that Wikipedia page, there are various over countries that have a similar concept. Being overly self-congratulatory comes across as this sort of grotesque and unattractive quality. It is even true in the corporate environments I've worked at where you would no…
You get some of that in the US too but there are also way more down-to-earth people there who actually want to help, and advice is actually helpful, rather than regurgitations of PG essays and Lean Startup.